Red and blue labels can't explain four-year results

Nov. 9, 2012

President Obama prevailed to win the state’s 10 electoral votes.

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Post-Crescent Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — One conclusion from Tuesday’s election results in Wisconsin is the Badger State electorate is marked by political schizophrenia.

Consider this: Four years ago, Wisconsin voters gave Democrat Barack Obama a 14-point victory in the presidential contest. Two years later, Republicans engineered a takeover of the state Legislature and governor’s mansion, one U.S. Senate seat and two U.S. House seats, to tilt the congressional delegation toward the GOP.

Then, this past June, voters rejected an attempt to recall Gov. Scott Walker, who sparked controversy with his move to restrict public employee union bargaining. The 2010 election and Walker’s recall victory had Republicans, both state and national, excited about their prospects of delivering Wisconsin to the GOP presidential nominee for the first time since 1984.

That excitement level reached fever pitch when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney chose U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Janesville as his running mate, solidifying Wisconsin’s position as a battleground state.

With Kenosha native Reince Priebus, the former chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, at the helm of the Republican National Committee, the GOP seemed positioned for a presidential victory in Wisconsin. The RNC provided $3.3 million to the state party in mid-October for election-related activities.

At the same time, Republicans regained control of the state Senate to once again control the gavels of state government.

It’s enough to cause any observer to ask: What gives? Is Wisconsin a red state or a blue state. The answer to that question, political pundits say, depends on the election and turnout.

“It’s all about turnout and which electorate turns out,” said Larry Jacobs, a presidential politics scholar at the University of Minnesota.

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Jacobs said the 2010 election turnout was dominated by older white conservative voters who tend to support Republicans, whereas the 2008 and 2012 turnouts were marked by a more diverse and youthful electorate that leans Democratic.

Brookings Institute political scholar Thomas Mann put it more succinctly.

“Wisconsin remains a blue state in presidential elections where its turnout is highest,” Mann said. “Smaller turnouts produce unrepresentative electorates that often deviate from the center of gravity in the state.”

Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, said the results of the past three elections in Wisconsin reflect the state’s dual personalities.

“We have a state that is relatively evenly divided, with no one party being big enough to dominate on its own,” Franklin said. “Swing voters determine the outcome of elections.”

On Tuesday, those voters swung Republican in the battle for control of the state Senate and Democratic on the national races.

“In a weird way, we’re not even purple,” Franklin said about the state’s primary political color. “Part of the time we’re pretty red and part of the time we’re pretty blue.”

Wisconsin is not the only state where its electorate seems politically at odds with itself, said Eric Ostermeier, who writes a research driven political blog at the University of Minnesota.

“In some ways, the schizophrenic electorate in Wisconsin is reflective of that of its neighbors,” Ostermeier said. “Minnesota Democrats won all constitutional offices in 2010 while the GOP captured both state legislative chambers and picked off a U.S. house seat. In Iowa in 2010, Democrats suffered one of their worst ever losses in the state house, lost the governor’s mansion, but somehow held on to all three U.S. House seats.”

On the other hand, Ostermeier said, what happened in Wisconsin could be a generational thing analogous to the change of quarterbacks by the beloved Green Bay Packers. He cited the age difference between Baldwin and Thompson.

Larry Sabato, a political expert at the University of Virginia, said elections more often than not turn on which candidate has the better get-out-the-vote operation.

“It just proves again,” Sabato said, “that the world is run at any given time by who shows up.”